A Laundry Room Not Just for Laundry
by Alden Miller | July 7, 2015 | Noe Valley - An Urban Edwardian, Projects + Press
Our laundry room when I was a kid was off the kitchen and had a door to the backyard. I grew up in Redondo Beach, California so this was great. We would run through the kitchen straight outside. The door was open all the time (so much so, I think one of my hamsters became wild). But it was a laundry room, and it would fill up with laundry. There wasn’t folding space or a clear work surface for the kind of messy projects a creative youth like myself came up with. Laundry rooms these days are so much more than a small corner to house the washer and dryer. They have become open craft rooms and spaces that require thoughtful space planning and plenty of light and work surface. They have also become, like other more formal areas of the house, a place that can reflect an individual’s or family’s style.
As interior design trends toward including personal enjoyment, not just presentation, spaces like closets, laundry rooms and pantry spaces have received a lot more attention. Such was the case for the laundry room at our Noe Valley project featured last year on Houzz. This was a small space, but was packed full of custom designed character. The eclectic style with salvaged treasures continued into this space with the wall mounted cast iron sink –found on the east coast at New York Salvage. It was a Goldilocks size as most sinks of this style were either too big or too small for the space. We also found a vintage soap holder and handcrafted wooden wall shelf. Reusing my clients old Sheila-Maid clothes rack finished the feel of the space.
The material selection was the most fun for this hip little space. First, we selected a custom color scheme of gold, black, and charcoal grey for the concrete floor tile in the circle pattern from Country Floors. After selecting this color scheme we brought a pop of yellow up the wall in 4×8 Northern Lights tile, color Marigold by Quarry Tile Company, in Washington. With the dramatic punch of color on this wall and the bold large scale pattern on the floor, we toned things down for the counter with a Squak Mountain paper concrete slab and the simple classic wallpaper pattern called Honeycomb by William Morris & Co. The cabinets were painted with Benjamin Moore: Consentino Chardonnay 247.
Nowadays, spaces like laundry rooms aren’t something to we should hide or be ashamed of. In fact, I think they are the perfect canvas to let our creativity shine.
